UPDATE (7 April 2020): The Thessaloniki International Film Festival has extended its call for creativity via its “Species of Spaces” project. While all of the short films created by 11 Greek filmmakers and Hellenic Film Academy Award nominees have already been completed and uploaded to the festival’s YouTube channel, the festival has also invited international filmmakers to participate in the second part of its Spaces project, dubbed Spaces #2. So far, 14 directors have confirmed their participation, and they will shoot short films in their homes. The confirmed names are Hungarian director and Berlinale winner Ildikó Enyedi, multi-award-winning Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, Catalan artist and filmmaker Albert Serra, renowned Dutch director Nanouk Leopold, North Macedonian writer-director and LUX Award winner Teona Mitevska, up-and-coming Spanish director Victor Moreno, independent Canadian filmmaker Denis Côté, Palestinian writer-director Annemarie Jacir, Turkish newcomer Tarik Aktaş, American actor-director John C Lynch, American-Israeli director Rachel Leah Jones, Argentinian filmmaker Mateo Bendesky, Canadian director Yung Chang and the great Chinese artist Jia Zhangke. According to the festival, more names will be added soon, and the films will be available on the gathering’s YouTube channel in the coming weeks.

The Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF), which had to postpone its Documentary Festival earlier this month owing to the COVID-19 outbreak (see the news) and has moved its industry section, Agora, online, is continuing its actions to keep creativity alive and kicking during the period of lockdown, as cinemas in Greece are also closed.

TIFF has assigned 11 directors to shoot 11 short films in their houses. The project, under the title “Species of Spaces”, inspired by the book by Georges Perec, invites the participating directors to comment on the new reality that we all live in. The main idea for each director is to create a short film of up to three minutes long, at home, using the environment, the people or the animals that exist in that space. Also, the only outdoor areas permitted are living spaces, such as balconies, gardens, terraces or stairwells. When they are completed, the films will be available on the Thessaloniki Film Festival’s YouTube channel.

Furthermore, the festival is planning two competitions for children and teenagers, aiming to activate their creativity and offer them a cinematic challenge for the days that they have to stay at home.

Also, on the festival’s YouTube channel, master classes from its previous editions have already been made available, including those by cult cinema icon John Waters, renowned illustrator John Mavroudis, internationally acclaimed cinematographer and president of the Thessaloniki Film Festival Giorgos Arvanitis, Academy Award-winning director Louie Psihoyos, Palme d’Or-winning director Ruben Östlund, subversive Catalan artist Albert Serra and two-time Academy Award-winning American director Alexander Payne. It is also planned for more internationally acclaimed film professionals to offer new online master classes for the festival’s audience to enjoy.

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